Who's In Charge Here?

By Ed Magnuson

Between Corpus Christi, Texas, and Mobile, one of the world's most extensive petrochemical complexes attracts the heaviest concentration of oil-tanker traffic off any U.S. coast. The Exxon Valdez disaster, which dumped 11 million gal. of crude oil into Alaskan waters in March 1989 should have jolted the U.S. -- and the Gulf States in particular -- into preparations for coping with such devastating spills. Just how dismally they have failed was demonstrated last week when fires and explosions wracked the 886-ft. Mega Borg for seven days, 60 miles off Galveston. For a time the convulsions threatened to disgorge 38 million gal. of oil toward the Texas coast.

The first blast erupted in the pump room near the stern of the Norwegian- registered Mega Borg during the routine but dangerous process of lightering, transferring oil to smaller ships. The fires spread and set off more explosions, spewing burning oil and geysers of dense black smoke. With its stern slowly dropping as it filled with leaking oil, the Mega Borg seemed likely to sink, a calamity that might have released its entire cargo; if so, the prevailing currents would apparently have carried the spilled oil toward one of the nation's largest estuary systems, including a vast wildfowl refuge.

Incredibly, emergency crews were not able to attack the flames promptly with anything more effective than seawater. The Norwegian owners of the stricken tanker had hired a Rotterdam-based salvage firm to deal with the accident. Nozzles, hoses and pumps for fire-fighting-foam equipment had to be air shipped from the Netherlands. This took two days. Some oil-containment equipment was flown from London. Experts and other gear came from Alaska and Seattle. Mexico was asked to send a huge oil-gobbling skimmer. And while the Rotterdam firm hired Texas boats and seamen to help out, a French company, which owned the oil cargo, recruited cleanup crews in Louisiana. With considerable understatement, Linda Maraniss, regional director of the Center for Marine Conservation, observed, "There was a general confusion about where the equipment was and who was in charge."

Fortunately, the light oil carried by the Mega Borg disperses and evaporates more readily than heavy crude. Of the 4 million gal. that escaped, much burned off in surface fires. By week's end the vessel was under control, although one tank was still leaking. The 30-mile-long slick seemed likely to inflict some -- but not major -- damage ashore. It had been a close call.

But why was there such confusion when the oil companies and the public had been given a spectacular warning in Alaska? Once again Congress has delayed, and the Bush Administration has applied no pressure to speed up legislation that might alleviate an urgent problem.

Both the House and Senate passed bills last year that would create strike forces in each of the nation's ten Coast Guard districts to be poised for quick responses to oil spills. The legislation would also require tanker owners to plan for a worst possible spill. The Coast Guard would no longer simply stand by but take immediate charge of all serious tanker accidents in U.S. waters. New tankers would have to have double hulls (the Coast Guard estimates the Valdez would have lost 60% less oil if it had been constructed this way). But a conference committee working out differences in the House and Senate versions of the law has met only once.

The procrastination apparently is due to strong resistance from the shipping and oil industries. One objection involves the timetable for putting double hulls on current tankers. The main obstacle concerns limits on the liability of tanker owners. The shippers want the U.S. to approve international standards adopted since 1984 by most European nations. These protocols would cap a company's cleanup costs at $78 million (Exxon says it has already spent $2 billion on its Valdez fiasco) and prevent nations from imposing more; yet the congressional bills would set higher liability limits in the U.S. and let the states go beyond the federal standards, as Alaska currently does. Says Alaska Governor Steve Cowper about the impact of the international rules: "The spiller gets off easy, the lawyers get rich, and you ((the states)) are left holding the bag."

While Congress endlessly ponders the industry arguments, all parties dealing with tanker accidents have an excuse for doing very little. Meanwhile, oil keeps gushing into U.S. coastal waters. Even as the Gulf fire blazed, busy New York harbor suffered its third major oil spill of the year. There have been approximately 250 lesser ones. Total spillage around New York: more than 1 million gal.

With reporting by Glenn Garelik/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Galveston